Happy
by Little-Known-Artist
Summary: A misunderstanding leads to unnecessary anger. Inuyasha tries to explain the situation, and ends up telling Kagome something she never knew about.


It's a week late for Mother's Day.

* * *

 **Happy**

"Look, Kagome, I never said—"

Kagome shushed him with a glare.

" _I don't want to hear it,_ " she mouthed before leaning back over her child. She smoothed the covers over their sleeping son's form and stood when her husband tapped her shoulder. She turned slowly, glare still in place. Inuyasha fought the urge to glare back. He didn't need this to turn into a fight, but it also shouldn't end with her going to sleep pissed at him. He gestured towards the door, and not before a roll of her eyes and a huff, Kagome lead the way out.

Going past the first tree, which was good enough out of the toddler's hearing range, Kagome leaned against it and crossed her arms. Her glare was fixed on Inuyasha when he spoke.

"I know you're mad but—"

"Me? Mad? Why would I be mad?" Kagome interrupted.

"Dammit, Kagome let me—" Inuyasha tried to start.

"It's true, I'm a terrible mother. You said it. Why would I be mad at the truth—"

"Knock it off," Inuyasha growled. "I never said you were a bad mother."

"Oh, but you _implied_ it," Kagome spat. Her eyes opened wide, as if in realization of how harsh her tone was. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Barely a second passed before Inuyasha's whole body stiffened up. He could smell the tears trying to form under her eyes. He couldn't stand it when she cried, and she always did when she was frustrated. She must really be upset.

"Inuyasha, I know how badly he…misbehaves, and…" She tilted her head up, as if trying to read what was written in the leaves overhead. "I feel like like I'm doing something wrong."

Inuyasha crossed his arms and stared down at her feet.

"You're not. He's just kinda…wild. That's how he is."

Kagome sighed. "Yeah, but he'd be better off if he had a mother who knew how to manage him."

"He's my kid too, y'know…" he muttered. Unsure if Kagome heard that, he continued. "When I said I'd've been like him if it weren't for my mother, it wasn't because she knew how to _manage_ me…" There was a long pause, and Kagome looked back to Inuyasha. His eyes were closed, and his face was concentrated, as if he were trying to collect his thoughts.

"It was 'cause…my mother wasn't…she was…she wasn't exactly happy…I…I didn't _really_ know it as a kid, but somethin' wasn't quite right. Not compared to other mothers." He opened his eyes to stare back at Kagome's feet.

"I don't know if she was sad—I think she was, actually. She wasn't weepy or anythin' but she was kinda...you know the word."

' _Melancholy?_ ' Kagome thought. The way he was describing it, it sounded like…

"And, I tried to make her happy. She'd smile when I was talking to her, and when I brought her things I found. Flowers, rocks, stupid little things like that," he finished with a scoff.

"I knew she wasn't happy, every time she thought I wasn't looking, she got this sad look on her face."

Kagome swallowed the lump that was forming in her throat. It sounded a lot like she was depressed. She remembered it from after her dad passed. Her mother was like that, too, for a few months. She wasn't really the same mama Kagome knew, but she had started to heal after a while…and she slowly came back. But, all Inuyasha knew was this version of his mother.

He thought, maybe if he was good—better behaved than even the _normal_ human children, then his mother would smile more.

* * *

" _Inuyasha? Oh, Inuyasha? Where did you get that bruise?"_

 _Izayoi raced over to her son, sitting with his knees to his chest in the corner of their room. She kneeled down and took his face in her hands, careful of the bruise below his temple. He blinked up at her with tears not yet rolling down his face. The bruise looked ghastly, brown and yellow around the edges, as if he had been struck by something hard and flat. The bruise looked all the more terrible for the swelling over her one and only baby's left brow._

" _Inuyasha? Baby, who hit you?" Her face was calm, but she couldn't hide the tremor in her voice._

 _Inuyasha pushed her hands away. He was barely five, but he had nearly the strength of grown man, which startled Izayoi. He was startled by her reaction, before he realized what had caused it. He sniffled, using his sleeve to wipe his eyes._

" _Nobody hit me," he whined._

" _Inuyasha, please," she pleaded._

" _Nobody!" he cried, choking on a sob. "I fell down! And—and—I hit my head!" he insisted pathetically._

 _Izayoi felt tears threatening to form in her own eyes, but she refused to let her precious baby see her cry. She stood, turning and making her way to the door._

" _Mother? Where are you going?"_

" _I'm…it's…it's not right for people to hit children."_

" _No!" Inuyasha leapt forward and grabbed onto his mother's legs. He buried his face into the fabric of her robes._

" _You'll get in trouble. You'll get in trouble."_

" _My darling son," Izayoi started._

" _It_ _'ll go away. I heal fast. It'll go away," he pleaded. "I'll be good from now on. I won't fall down anymore," he continued, the sound of his voice almost entirely muffled._

 _Izayoi swallowed down the majority of her anger. She took a few deep breaths through her nose. She looked down to her only baby boy, now lying on his belly with his arms wrapped around her ankles. She bent over, picked him up under the arms, and lifted him up to her chest. He was getting bigger; soon he would be too heavy to lift like that. She carried him over to a cushion, sitting down and placing him in her lap. He looked up at her nervously when she again cupped his non-injured cheek in her hand. He was right. In the minute or so since she had seen it, there was a very slight change in the color of the bruise as it went through its accelerated healing process._

 _"What am I going to do?" Izayoi mumbled._

 _"Don't do anything. We'll both get in trouble."_

 _Izayoi sighed. She hugged her baby to her chest, him wrapping his own arms around her. How was it that the logic of such a small child was better than her own? She wanted someone to be punished for hurting such a young boy as badly as they had, but she knew that if she spoke up, it would be the reverse. She would be punished, and along with her, the very child she wanted to protect._

 _After a while, she scooted Inuyasha down in front of her, holding the boy to her as they sat in the quiet. Inuyasha's ear twitched with every birdcall, but other than that, they remained still until Inuyasha spoke._

" _I'm sorry, mother."_

 _Izayoi exhaled sharply._

" _Inuyasha, there is nothing to be sorry about."_

" _It's 'cause of me that everyone's mean to you."_

 _Her hold on him tightened marginally._

" _Inuyasha, that is not the case," she insisted. Inuyasha knew, even then, that was a lie._

" _It is so. If I were born normal—"_

" _Being human does not make anyone_ _normal_ _. You_ _are_ _normal for_ _you_ _."_

" _But everything is hard for you. You're always sad because of me. If I wasn't born instead you'd be happy."_

 _Izayoi gasped. She shifted Inuyasha's body and her own so they were eye-to-eye._

" _Inuyasha, do you know how much I love you? I love you so much. I would never trade you for anything... I love your father, and I love you, and you are the one thing I care about more than anything in the world."_

He wouldn't realize it until later in life, but while she said she loved him, she never said she was happy.

* * *

Inuyasha cringed and looked at Kagome when the scent of tears got stronger. She was wiping her face with her sleeve.

"I didn't know that. I'm sorry, Inuyasha."

"Ah hell, why're you crying?"

"Because I got mad at you for no reason," she said with a sniff. It was a misunderstanding, plain and simple. She always had mixed feeling when Inuyasha spoke about his mother. It happened so rarely that she was happy to hear it...but not a lot of the stories were happy. Sometimes they were, but there was some aspect of her husband's telling that left her with unease, or a sadness that stuck with her. She had gotten mad at him today when she was trying to clean the mud out of their toddler's Kimono. Inuyasha laughed when Kagome told him the boy took after him, to which Inuyasha replied that he'd actually been well-behaved as a child. By him mentioning his mother, there should have been happiness, or sadness at the woman's mention. But for some reason, the way it came out it sounded like Inuyasha was comparing her mothering skills to Kagome's own.

He could tell the mood was lighter, he tried to press his luck with a, "you do that all the time, what's so different now?"

She chuckled.

"I'm hormonal, maybe?"

"Bah."

She tucked her hair behind her ear and walked up beside her husband. "How are we going to manage two of them?"

"Well..." Inuyasha glanced down at his wife's belly. She wasn't showing in the slightest. "Most kids mellow out with age…We got six months here, and with any luck, by the time this one's walking you'll only have the one tearing through the village."

Kagome rolled her eyes.

"I'm hoping for a girl."

Inuyasha scoffed. "Like girls are any easier."

* * *

I just had a thought the other day, because Izayoi's life must have been hard, if not for her own sake, seeing how her one and only child was looked down upon by everyone that she knew. I don't doubt she loved little Inuyasha with all her heart, like mothers of young children do, but I wonder if she ever felt depressed. Especially since Inuyasha's father died before Inuyasha was old enough to remember.


End file.
